1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an orthodontic feeding nipple, comprising a one-piece, single-walled hollow body of elastomeric material including an annular connecting part for attaching it to a feeding bottle disposed coaxially to a longitudinal axis. The feeding nipple is placed with its outer face in a first base plane perpendicular to this longitudinal axis. The feeding nipple includes a shell in the form of a body generated by revolution, its longitudinal axis forming its axis, having the approximate shape of half a hollow sphere, its edge integrally formed onto the other face of the connecting part and having an opening in the area facing away from the base plane; and a hollow nozzle portion closed at its free end by a rounded tip. The hollow nozzle portion has a narrowed neck part at its other end, the wall thickness of which in a reference plane parallel to the base plane and drawn through the point of its smallest outside diameter is in general equal across its entire circumference and is integrally formed onto the opening of the shell. The entire hollow body is mirror-symmetrical with respect to a plane of symmetry passing through the longitudinal axis and the axis of a bore of a suction opening extending through the wall of the hollow nozzle portion. The vertex of the outer surface of the hollow nozzle portion furthest away from the base plane is located on a vertex line perpendicular to the plane of symmetry and offset from the longitudinal axis, and the inner surface intersection curves, created by the intersection of the inner surface of the hollow nozzle portion with arbitrary transverse planes parallel to the base plane, have approximately the form of ellipses, the minor axes of which form the intersection lines of the plane of symmetry with the respectively associated transverse planes.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Known feeding nipples of this type are produced by the dipping process which, on the one hand, is expensive as a manufacturing process and, on the other hand, only permits the formation of all the walls with a generally equal wall thickness. To the extent that for medical reasons it would be required to provide sections of the feeding nipple with an enlarged wall thickness, these limitations have to be tolerated.
Compared with the formation after normal development, the lower jaw of a child is in a recessed position at birth and the palate has a comparatively compressed shape.
During natural feeding by the mother, the child presses the mother's nipple against its palate by means of the tongue and stimulates the discharge of milk by a pulsating pressure of the tongue on the nipple which, because of its shape and tissue structure, passes on these pressure pulses to the palate. The latter reacts to this by growing. The pressure pulses also act on the lower jaw and continuously force it forward. The lower jaw reacts by slowly shifting its position forward. The tongue movements described are basically always performed by the child when it is awake; however, they are especially pronounced during feeding, thus giving it special importance for a good formation of the body parts described above. It has already been a goal in feeding nipples of the type described above to achieve effects in the development of children comparable to breast feeding without, however, being able to approach this goal to the extent desired.